


Until the lights go down

by technorat



Series: roleswap au [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Force Healing, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury, Minor Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Past Medical Experimentation, Pre-Relationship, Starkiller Base, That's Not How The Force Works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 07:37:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18205472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/technorat/pseuds/technorat
Summary: Starkiller is collapsing.General Ren is tasked with retrieving Supreme Leader Snoke's apprentice, Armitage Hux.





	Until the lights go down

**Author's Note:**

> written for Bad Things Happen bingo! The prompt was "empathic healing." I think I diverged a little bit, but I was fun :D
> 
> warnings applicable: canon typical violence / past on page child abuse / violence towards children / decapitation of a minor character / minor character deaths / murderous thoughts / distressing flashbacks / past medical experimentation
> 
> you can find me [here](http://gaygalaxyguy.tumblr.com) on tumblr and you can find me [here](https://twitter.com/gay_galaxy_guy) on twitter.

Ren runs and runs, pushing aside his officers, his ‘troopers, anyone that gets in his way. He skids to a halt, before the holo-chamber, shakily entering his codes.

Beneath him, all of Starkiller shakes and lets out a dying keen.

He runs to the center of the room, eyes up, staring at the flickering, scarred projection of Snoke. “Supreme Leader,” Ren says, voice breaking. “The fuel cells have ruptured. Starkiller is beginning to collapse.”

_“Leave the base at once and come to me with Armitage Hux. It is time… to complete his training.”_ Falling debris ripple through the hologram. It shuts off, leaving Ren alone in the dark.

He blinks, as emergency lights bathe the room in red.

_Hux_.

The bane of his existence.

Leader of the Knights of Ren, strong in the Force where Ren is so, so very _weak_.

He should leave Hux on this dying planet, wherever he’d run off to. Or perhaps slit his throat quickly on the transport vehicle. Snoke wouldn't know either way. Ren shakes his head, long hair escaping the formerly neat bun at the base of his neck, sticking instead to the sweaty high collar of his uniform.

But Hux commands a strange sort of loyalty amongst the younger officers and, better, stirs fear in the older officers, those that still remember the glory days of the Empire.

(And, he refuses to acknowledge, though the Knights of Ren bear his name, they do not listen to anyone but Hux.)

*

Starkiller Base shakes beneath each step. Snow churns, flying back into the air, flakes threading themselves through his hair. Ren marches on, past trees that fall to the ground, past fires bursting up from the core and then freezing, like twisted ashen statues.

Hux bears no tracker, no com, no datapad—not a lick of technology that would’ve made Ren’s job easier.

Ren stops, cold snow leaking through the stitches of his boots. He shuts his eyes and breathes, just breathes and reaches out, with the Force.

Death, he feels it all around them. The fall of ancient trees. Small, burrowing creatures being cooked alive. And yet there is still life—

Foxes darting amongst the snow. Birds flying up from their roosts. Their fear, their panic, their hearts beating along his own, all of it springs unwanted tears to his eyes. And there—amongst the roots of an upturned tree—is Hux.

His pulse is weak and fluttering, like a bird in the palms of his hands.

Ren follows the thread of Hux’s life, eyes shut, ignoring the tears that trail angrily down his cheeks. The Force guides his every footfall.

He falls to his knees, beside Hux’s body before opening his eyes.

Hux is hardly awake, his eyes mere slits, that ring of gold still burning fiercely, though it is surrounded by an unfamiliar green. His hands are limp, lying in the snow, tipped purple with cold. He’s wounded, a gash over one of his eyes. Blood seeps from his tunic. His lightsaber lies just out of his reach.

Are there more injuries hidden beneath layers and layers of dark fabric?

What had happened here?

He is so pale, pale as the snow he is cushioned on, with his hair like firelight. The sun above them is flickering out of existence. Blood is bright and red, soaking the white of the snow.

Ren feels for a pulse, feels how weak Hux’s lifeforce is. How little still keeps him from rejoining the Force.

How easy it would be to pull out his blaster and end the man’s life.

Hux looks at him, eyes burning. He knows it too. They watch each other carefully for a long, drawn out moment. Hux shuts his eyes and turns his head away.

Surrender.

Ren sighs. Against all this, he cannot kill Hux, not now, not ever. Not when Hux is the only one not afraid of him, in all of the First Order. The only one who does not flinch when his temper gets the best of him and he empties clip after clip of his blaster into a data terminal.

The only one who calls him by name, instead of title.

He calls for one of the evacuating vehicles, letting them know to prep whatever medical supplies they had onboard.

Ren sheds his greatcoat and drapes it over Hux, picking up the scrawny man. The gabberwool should help somewhat with insulation, even while wet. Hux doesn’t weigh much at all. It’s like he isn’t even there.

“K-Kylo?” Hux gurgles, a dribble of blood escaping his lip, falling onto the coat. His eyes are open wide, pain radiating off him in waves.

“Don’t waste your strength. Help is on its way.” Ren simply holds him, and pretends not to feel the other man tremble.

*

On the shuttle, Ren had refused to let go of Hux, originally. But the wounds still weep, blood sluggishly soaking into Ren’s uniform. Finally, he puts Hux onto one of the makeshift cots.

The officers—not even medical officers—cut through the layers of black clothing. One administers a painkiller. The others dab at the wounds, cleaning them.

Ren frowns. “Where is the bacta?” he all but growls.

None of the officers meet his eyes, each of them an alarming shade of white.

“Sir,” the bravest one says, taking his hat into his hands. Ren thinks his name is Mitaka, a lieutenant that was quick to bring him caf and quicker to leave when it was clear that Ren's temper was getting the better of him. But he stands the General down now, eyes shining with determination. (How absolutely cute, Ren sneers.) "Supreme Leader Snoke had previously forbid the use of bacta on his apprentice.”

Ren shakes his head slowly. “Don’t you think this situation calls for breaking old protocol?” he snarls.

Mitaka shakes but holds his ground. “But s-sir, what if— will we—?”

Will we be punished for it? the man wants to ask, but is afraid that he will be punished too for even asking.

Ren bears his teeth. His hand itches for his pistol, but on such a small vessel, it would not be smart to lay waste. “Bring me all the medkits,” he orders.

The officers are quick to comply. Ren goes through the medkits, pulling outhandfuls of bacta patches, regardless of size.

“Hux,” he says, kneeling at the man’s side.

The Sith blinks, eyes fogged over. He doesn’t say a word, but his pupils dilate. 

Ren peels off the paper backing of a patch. “Hold still,” Ren instructs. The wound on Hux’s side is the worst. It’s massive, still bleeding sluggishly. And older than his other wounds.

How could he have continued standing after taking a hit like that?

Hux holds up a hand. “No,” he says, voice small and weak. He fights against losing consciousness, his own exhaustion.

“You need medical care,” Ren says, swatting at Hux’s hand.

Hux raises his hand again, shoving Ren back with the Force. “I said no!” Hux slurs.

“You’ll _die_ ,” Ren yells at him.

Hux’s eyes burn, the hatred only dulled by the pain that radiates through his being. He forces himself to sit up, wincing with the movement. “No bacta,” Hux says, quieter.

Ren waits half a moment before dropping the bandage. He picks himself up and sits beside Hux on the cot. It creaks beneath his weight.

The shuttle grows too quiet. Ren is well aware of the eyes of his men.

“You can heal me,” Hux says.

“I can’t.”

He can’t. He has not reached for those powers in years—not since the temple, not since Luke.

“The Light,” Ren says, words spilling from him like water. “It calls me. It can’t have me.”

“Light, Dark,” Hux says, shutting his eyes. “The Force belongs to no side. It is power. You choose to use it.” His words grow quieter and quieter until he stills, slumping over.

“Hux,” Ren barks. He can hardly feel Hux’s heartbeat, his life-force. “Hux!”

He pulls the other man into his arms, Hux’s breath is hot against Ren’s neck. His breaths are thin and uneven, coming out of parted lips.

Ren shuts his eyes and hates himself for being made so weak. He reaches for the Light, for a part of him he dared not reach for years. It comes easily to him, spitefully easily to spread healing through Hux’s ravaged body.

Hux makes a small, weak noise in his arms, one that the officers will have to forget.

_ Snow. The girl. The Scavenger. She stands, bearing her teeth. In her hands is a blue lightsaber. _

_ Hux looks at her from below. Her nose, her eyes. He sees the little features of— _

No…

_ Earlier. An aged Han Solo stands before him, looking not like the legend Hux had been warned of. “It’s not too late,” Han Solo tells him, an Imperial raised bastard. A nobody. “You can leave with us. We know what your father did.” _

_ Han Solo reaches out (hand flat, not closed; an offer, not a punishment) and Hux flinches. _

_ “It’s okay,” Han Solo says. Every bit the father that Hux did not have but he wasn’t like that for Ben. He wasn’t! “You’re going to be okay. We have someone on Base. She—” _

_ Hux strikes him down. _

_ Han Solo falls. Down, down, down. _

_ The girl screams. “No!” The Wookie lets out a blaster bolt. _

_ Tears run down his/ _ Hux’s _ / _ their _ face. _

Ren gasps, Hux’s flesh burning underhand. Wounds close unnaturally, pain radiating where they had once been. He feels the stretch of new, pink, shiny skin around his eye.

_ Earlier still. _

_ Snoke stands from his throne. “You are weak,” he says. “Like your father said.” _

“No,” Ren croaks, but it is not his voice that leaves him.  _“I am nothing like what he thought.”_

_ “Insolent boy,” Snoke says. “Think yourself above my judgement?” Lightning courses from his fingers, flowing through his ( _ Hux’s _ ) body. _

_ He falls to his knees, blood dribbling down his chin, where he'd bitten through his lip. He snarls, a rapid cur, but stays down. He knows his place, on the ground. Subservient. Until he is needed next. But he is still alive and his father is not. _

_ Someday, Snoke’s skull will join all those others on his mantel. _

Ren takes a stuttering gasp. Old scars leave Hux’s flesh. The haltering white scars that had once lined Hux’s bottom lip flush vivid pink, skin rejuvenated.

Every inch of him throbs, having taken in all that pains Hux.

“What are you doing?” Hux gasps out, the skin of his cheeks flushed a bright red. His heart is beating so loudly, Ren can hear it between his ears.

“Healing you!”

Ren can’t pull away, as much as he wants to. All the hurt and all the pain of Hux’s memories drag him right back down into that raging abyss.

_ Earlier still. Snoke hurts him again and again and again. He breaks bones and Hux lives in a daze, his insides burn. Infection sets in. He swallows stolen pills dry, hating the tickle at the back of his throat. _

_ Training. Training, what a mockery. Hux hates and he hates and he thinks about killing Snoke now, before his training is complete, rather than later. He cannot wait another day, living on the same ship as his abuser once again. _

_ When those days happen, Snoke sends him to reconditioning and Hux forgets. _

_ Oh, he forgets so much. Like all the reasons for the pains that bother him. Like the strange, empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. _

_ He lies in a too small bed, knees tucked to his chest, and stares at the ceiling. What was his name again? He cannot recall. _

_ Ren gasps, resurfacing for a moment. “Think of something else,” he barks, but Hux has gone so very still in his arms. _

_ His lightsaber—the first one he ever built—slides neatly through Brendol Hux’s neck. Hux revels in the bloodshed, in the slaughter, in the death of the man he called father. He picks up the head by Brendol’s thinning hair and stares into empty eyes. _

_ The officers on the Bridge don’t react to such a thing. _

_ Brendol Hux had it coming. _

“Stop,” Ren says.

_ Brendol backhands him, the rings on his fingers cutting into the flesh of Hux’s face. “Weak,” he says. _

“Stop.”

_ He fails a simulation. He could not complete it properly. He was twelve and small for his age. The rifle-styled blaster is so very heavy in his arms. _

_ “Useless.” _

Stop. "Please!"

_ The researchers strap him down into a chair. They inject weird things into him. It burns, it burns, there beneath his skin. He cries. “Mommy!” he cries. _

_ Brendol watches from behind a screen, a sneer on his face. “Pathetic.” _

_ “It will be okay,” a researcher tells him, patting the very top of his head. Hux takes no comfort in it. He wants to go back, back to Arkanis. Back to his mother’s arms. She would sing to him and hold him close and promise him a place among the stars and love him. _

_ Love him, because they only had each other in this great big Galaxy but now he is all alone and she is somewhere else and— _

_ “You are participating in a very important experiment,” the researcher explains to him, as if he is far younger than his seven years. “You will help us rebuilt the Stormtrooper program, to help us learn how to make great soldiers to protect this Galaxy. Doesn’t that sound important?” _

_ Hux—Armitage shakes his head and sobs harder. _

_ Reconditioning is always so painful. _

“Stop!” Ren yells.

_ Armitage is five years old and baking beneath the sun of Jakku. The other savage children have been loaded onto the too small ship. _

_ “Mama,” he says, standing beside her. “Will everything be okay?” _

_ She is beautiful. He always knew it, but the years have worn away so much of her from his memories. But now it’s Rey’s face he/they see. The slope of her nose, the shape of her lips. “Yes,” she lies. “Sweetie, everything will be fine.” Why does she always have to lie? _

Ren thinks he will throw up.

_ Brendol leaves his mama on Jakku, even when she screams. Even when she chases the shuttle out into the wastes. Even when the shuttle reaches hyperspace. _

_Armitage sobs and sobs until one of the other kids punches him and knocks him right over, onto the ground. He does not get up. He does not ever want to get up_.

“Hux,” Ren groans, fingers digging into the flesh of Hux’s arms. “Hux!”

_ Earlier. _

_ Arkanis. _

_ These memories are blurry, hazy. But the fear is heavy. _

_ The Resistance bombards the tiny planet. _

_ Armitage quakes and hides in his mother’s skirts. _

_ Her fingers, thin, graceful, and so very cold, run through his long, red hair. “Shhh,” she says. “It will all be alright.” _

Ren throws himself to the floor and hurls, only stomach acid escaping him. He feels weak, drawn. Like someone had picked him up and wrung him out. He aches all over, with the pain of Hux’s many wounds.

He chances a glance up, at the sprawled form of Hux.

Snoke’s apprentice is unconscious, and utterly free of his wounds.

Ren slumps but does not let himself relax, not yet. His heart still pounds, remembering all of the pain Hux carried with him. He reaches up, to feel his face. There is no wound like he thought there would be, just his own smooth flesh.

“Sir?” Mitaka says, approaching nervously. “What was that?”

Ren shakes his head, feeling entirely out of his depth. “I don’t know.”

The accursed Light, oh, it calls to him. He shivers, cold to his core.


End file.
